Get in the Picture

(sorry for no warning!! Was away 10 days with family to Orlando and Caribbean cruise.  At airport on way home now and will post first and last blog. All the in between parts about our vacation and pictures I will post this week)

 

My goal on this trip is to be more present.

 

Vacations are so precious. Expensive in time, in money in energy. I want to lap in every single minute when I am blessed enough to be on them. More importantly to treasure these precious moments the five of us. I started counting on my fingers how many more vacations we will be easily the five of us without kids jobs/college etc. making it hard. I counted one (Chase will be. 18) if we are lucky two. (Chase will be 20!!) in between we will travel alone or with one kid at a time. That is our formula and it is brilliant if I do day so myselfJ. The 1-1 grade 6 trips were/are amazing.. The perfect age and so bonding. We will do another alone trip after high school and enjoy that unique stage too. It really is just an excuse to travel! We feel strongly that any type of cultural educational trip will involve at least one kid. Romantic trips for us. Adventure and culture for all of us. For us there is nothing like the bonding that goes one travelling with one kid at a time.

So part of me being present was to do just that on this trip. Less pictures and less recording on blogs. No texting (except mom every few days to check on her and a couple of oxygen emails to bffs) and no emailing in that moment at night where I might usually blog... I now read or sleep. In the moment waiting for the others on the roller coasters that make me sick.. I people watch. In the car moments I make my kids laugh. There are so many moments and so little time to have them in it feels.

I want a life with no regrets. These vacations are priceless as far as I am concerned. As I told a friend recently who suggested I save money in future by not going on these vacations: I would rather juggle in the streets as a night job than not have these times with my family. Outside of travel we are not big going out to dinner people or shows or movies out and presents and popcorn. This is the time we do this stuff in.

We are all about experiences this family. Now 3 days in we have not visited one gift shop one store or bought one single thing. And I can almost guarantee it will remain that way. We buy time and very little of anything else. The kids were passed down this gene for sure. Have u ever met a kid who goes to theme parks and never asks for anything even when they were 4 years old ? They have always asked for experiences and never for things. Their parent's children to the core.

 

So as I start the first couple of days of vacation and I decompress, my goal is to be there fully. Not necessarily disturb the moment with a picture or a note or even a thought if I can help myself. But to just bask in the present even if that means that in the future I will only have my memory to remember those moments in many cases. Don’t get me wrong there will still be pictures..  but never at the expense of a moment. I won't disturb the peace and present to get them because I know... that I am at my very best...

 

When I get in the picture.

The real picture.